Are You Using This Final Step in Your Spiritual Warfare?
A few years ago I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. It is a disease that forms ulcers throughout your intestines. Whatever food or liquid you swallow aggravates those, also making your body get rid of whatever you ate or drank very quickly without absorbing any of the nutrients. It is about as fun as it sounds! I had been battling with this sickness for two years before being diagnosed. In that time I prayed, fasted, warred with every demon I could think of, and invested every bit of my faith. I believed that if I prayed and faith-ed hard enough, my body and this sickness would just come right.
It was not until I had a particularly bad flare-up shortly after my honeymoon that my husband put his foot down and made me go see a doctor. He told me, “Look, I know you have great faith and can move mountains, but God gave us doctors for a reason and it is time you get your healing now!" ...I was so mad at him because my family doesn’t do sick, and I boasted in the fact that I had never been to a doctor before! However, when I woke up from my anesthetic sleep, the relief that swept through me at that moment assured me I finally had my healing. And so, three years later when the devil tried to get me with his sickness and fear again when I went into preterm labor with my son, I did not fear losing him. Rather, I knew he would be safe because God had placed me in the care of some very capable doctors.
Prophets, we are equipped for kicking the devil’s behind, and to open heaven's floodgates. We can throw our spiritual mountains into the sea, and send ten thousand to flight... all before our morning coffee! But then, you step outside your front door, find an unexpected bill in the mail, drive to work and get into a bumper bash, your car breaks down, or better yet, you end up losing your job with a mountain of debt! Talk about spiritual warfare and the enemy sending attacks against you…
It is great, you are warring in your prayer room. I also love to get down and pray up a storm, but there comes a time when the car needs to be fixed, that bill needs to be paid, and you have to look at the open door you have in your life that the enemy keeps using to attack you.
This is the part of our warfare we tend to forget. When I was missing every family gathering, fun outing, or birthday party because I was sick or in the bathroom, I prayed every day for healing!
However, I got my healing when I finally went to the doctor. Turns out that learning to stop stressing over things that were not my responsibility, and cutting out fiber and caffeine for a few weeks was the secret to my warfare. I could have had my healing much sooner, but I was stubborn and swore blind that all I needed to do was pray harder… So, where are you experiencing your warfare?
It is time to look at what you can do to start preventing your spiritual warfare by:
Identifying the pattern! (Where does the enemy always get you?)
Doing the spiritual warfare! (Deal with any open doors of sin such as bitterness, offense, judgment, etc.)
Finally, doing the natural warfare! (Get that car fixed, go for a walk/workout, get the facts of where, why, how! Find out about the deadline, and if you can set up a payment plan to pay off those bills. Or, perhaps you just need to budget better?)
God will move the heavens for you, but if you do not open and walk through the door He has set before you, the blessing and promise cannot flow. So, position yourself for victory in every way and you will find your warfare is not as bad as you thought it was!
DEBORAH-ANNE VELTHUYSEN
PROPHET, PRINCIPAL AMI PROPHETIC SCHOOL
Position: Prophetic School Co-Principal, Trainer, "Mrs. I don't always have the answer but Jesus does!"
Strengths: Faith in everyone with a call, BOLDNESS!
Weakness: Tendency to get the "troubled ones" in her prophetic school
Description: If anyone was going to spearhead a prophetic movement it would be this woman right here! Having done just about everything you can do right and wrong in your prophetic training, Deborah uses this experience and hard-earned anointing to raise up prophets to the prophetic office. There is always hope for anyone who starts their prophetic training! She will bite like a bulldog and hold on tightly until the Lord Himself tells her to let go!
Working alongside her husband they stand as equals raising a generation of prophets who are going to build the kingdom of God, tear down the works of the enemy, and bring the bride of Christ into a face-to-face relationship with Jesus. Look out devil because these prophets are coming for you and they will not be stopped!
